Speakers

Mike Jubinville, Lead Analyst and President of Pro Farmer CanadaMike Jubinville is currently lead analyst and President of Pro Farmer Canada, a market analysis and advisory service for farm commodities based out of Winnipeg. Mike formerly was employed as a cash merchant with what was then United Grain Growers...then senior market analyst with Growers Marketing Services of UGG. Mike also worked as an analyst with Manitoba Pool Elevators and market reporter with Resource News International and DowJones Newswires out of Winnipeg and Chicago.

He started Pro Farmer Canada in 1997 to provide independent market analysis and commentary for Prairie farmers and can currently be found on the Internet at PFCanada.com and on DTN.

Ernest Earon, PhD, President and Founder of PrecisionHawkDr. Earon is PrecisionHawk’s President and Co-founder. He has been working in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and intelligent, autonomous vehicle control for over 10 years with a particular emphasis on the design, development, and control of unique and novel unmanned aircraft. Previously, Dr. Earon has served as technical manager at the University of Toronto for UAV architecture for civil applications. He also led the design, development and implementation of the sensor package and vehicle control for a team of intelligent lunar robots for a Canadian Space Agency project culminating in a successful mission deployment on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. As Systems Group Manager at Quanser Consulting in Markham, Canada, he led several unmanned vehicle development programs which included the development of a novel aircraft design now a commercial product and the development of coordinated heterogeneous teams of unmanned aircraft and ground vehicles, leading to an autonomous UAV flight missions demonstration for Defence R & D Canada. He managed these projects from a vehicle design, flight and ground operations and control development perspective, including ensuring that all regulatory and certification qualifications from the Civil Aviation Authorities were met. Dr. Earon earned his doctorate from the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies in 2004.

About PrecisionHawkThe PrecisionHawk platform provides invaluable, real-time data for applications such as land surveying, agricultural plant vigor and plant growth, forestry, oil/gas, and field conditions.

PrecisionHawk’s unmanned aircraft system is a small, robotic plane that can collect extremely high-resolution, remote sensing data with minimal effort. The aircraft itself is lightweight (1.3 kilograms), small (less than 1 meter from nose to tail), silent (runs on brushless electric motors) and is designed to be extremely easy to use. The aircraft automatically computes flight paths, survey parameters, take-off and landing paths, as well as other vital information. Once the survey is complete, the on-board computers will automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks and transfer all remote sensing data, flight information and diagnostics to remote servers. Users are never required to manually generate or plot mission paths or build flight plans based off of weather conditions. Instead, the aircraft will automatically adapt to its current conditions.

While PrecisionHawk provides an aircraft as a means to collect data, but it’s important to know that the platform is not the product. The product is information delivery. The company has built an information pipeline that takes data from an aircraft and closes the gap between collection and usable information delivered to the right place.

The team is comprised of over 50 professionals with backgrounds in remote sensing, unmanned aircraft operations, software development, data processing and GIS systems development. The company operates out of offices in Indianapolis, Ind., Raleigh, N.C. and Toronto, Ont. For more information, go to: www.precisionhawk.com. Visit on Twitter @PrecisionHawk.

Agriculture & PrecisionHawkPrecisionHawk is disrupting the agricultural industry by helping crop researchers, crop consultants and farmers make better farm management decisions. These industry stakeholders are using PrecisionHawk solutions for applications such as identifying disease and insects, uncovering nutrient deficiencies and comparing crop genetics to enable increased yields with less resources. These solutions can have a positive impact on essentially any type of crop such as corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, cotton and grapes in vineyards. The Lancaster Mark III platform is well suited for both research, which typically involves 5-20 acre fields, as well as production agriculture, which looks at bulk properties that can range from 100-1,000 acres.

We are looking for and assessing a number of important problems including stand counting, trait assessment, canopy profiling, nitrogen measurements plant health measurement, water quality assessment, vegetation index calculation, full spectral sensing, spectral index research and development, as well as mineral and surface composition surveys.

The greatest business opportunities often occur at points of confluence. PrecisionHawk finds itself at one of these points. The multifaceted technology of UAVs is ripe for the development of unique airborne robotic systems that can help track, monitor and protect valuable crops in one of the world's largest industries. With its proprietary technology and leadership team's extensive data management and business licensing experience, PrecisionHawk is poised to be an industry leader in the field of agricultural intelligence.